Lil's Pad

Saturday saw us head into London for an English Heritage walk in legal London. Unfortunately, EH had neglected to mention that at the weekend most of the Inns of Court are closed to tourists. This didn't bother me too much, but it seriously annoyed Ina, who occasionally writes fan fiction in that particular setting and was there for research purposes. There will be photos, but I haven't done anything with them except transfer them to the hard drive.

On Sunday, though, we went to the Blackwater Country Show (with the dogs) and this was great. For those of you not familiar with Essex geography, the Blackwater flows into the Thames Estuary at Maldon, famous for Saxon battles, salt, sailing and wildlife. The show was held on large flat (it's all flat around there, except Maldon itself, which has a hill!) piece of parkland with its own lakes. There was little competition (a few fun classes for dogs) but lots of stalls, demos and rings.

In the main ring, we saw a demo of driving by the Co-op Funeral Service Shire Team (South).

Some duck herding... (at which Bren took notes)

And a demo game of the sport of horseball, which is a bit like polo as a spectator sport in that you need to get your eye in, and also need to have ridden to appreciate both the skill and the danger involved.

We missed the local hunt while grabbing some lunch.

There were some really interesting stalls.

Bren just sat and stared in amazement at the Alpacas. (I love alpacas and we now both have alpaca wool walking socks for winter.)

The owls stared at us

and we got the usual view of the hawks as they tried to land on various marquees instead of coming to glove in the ring.

And one miniature pony (of a group that do children's 'events') had the most amazing shoes

There was fun agility, at which these Dandy Dinmonts did not exactly cover themselves with glory

But Draco provided a photo opportunity...

There was fishing, canoeing, Newfoundland demos, Labrador retrievers doing their thing and model boats on the lake.

Plus this guy and his dog...

A Saxon village

in which this little girl not only got fitted with a helmet and sword, but showed great reluctance to let go of a battle axe.

There were carriage rides and a 'train' and donkey rides...

Oh, and for my fellow Avengers fans, I got to sound knowledgeable because I could identify this bike

as the standard Harley Davidson used throughout the US Army in WW2 -- and the one Captain America should be riding in Captain America: The First Avenger, though I dislike that film enough so I am not going to bother to check if they got it right - which I doubt.

We have a number of horse drawn hearse hire companies in Essex (including those who have white horses, and a white glass hearse for Muslim funerals). I never mind behind held up behind horses in the same way as cars.